I’m a big fan of simplicity when it comes to SEO. I am not into following every latest trend or trick. I think far too much detracts from the most important part of blogging - writing.

Therefore, when I work with my bloggers, I keep it simple.

TOP 10 SEO TIPS:

1. Set out strong categories. It’s a very basic step, but often not considered effectively.
   • Keep it simple
   • Research - know your top search terms, and compare like searches
   • Emphasize your keywords, even if it requires repetitiveness (like celebrity names or show names used in various ways)
   • Organize - I have moved towards using category hierarchies on almost all our b5 blogs in order to increase the number of categories for SEO while also maximizing navigation ease for the readers
2. Name your images. This populates greater keywords into the post, and also promotes Google Image traffic
   • image-name-01.jpg where "-" is a space and numbers are used for multiple images
   • "Image Description Text" in Title / Alt Text areas
3. Use effective titles. Short, with strongest keywords first.
4. Use text effects (bold or header code) - also good for readers on longer posts
5. Use bullets and other lists, when appropriate - they tend to lean towards search friendly phrases
6. Use tags - both general tags (which lend themselves well to general searches) and specific tags. As many as appropriate.
7. Promote yourself - use services such as Digg, Reddit or Stumbleupon, as well as forum participation, to promote your posts
8. Participate on other blogs - leave useful comments on other sites. In many cases, this becomes a link back, and in best cases, will lend to those authors noticing you and linking to you in future
9. Watch your text length - don’t let images or video clips live on their own. Describe them in enough text for search engines to appropriately identify your posts.
10. Use Pages to summarize and link to important posts
    • Depending on your setup, these can be more optimally positioned for SEO as they will usually be blog-name/page-title.
    • Effective pages will give you the opportunity to highlight your most popular content - to link to many posts on your site. Examples include Top 10 lists, Popular Post excerpts, TV Spoilers, Celebrity Biographies

SEO does not have to be complicated. The best SEO tips are things you can do every day to make your site better.

At b5, I can skip past one important area (posting regularly), because of our contract & topic areas, but for many sites, this should not be overlooked.

Tags: seo, seo tips, top seo tips, top 10, search engine optimization, search engine, traffic

The NY Times did a spread on blogging as a career entitled "Can Blogs Become a Big Source of Jobs?". b5media is heavily featured in the article. And I get my own little feature in there too, although they didn’t use my name. I’m clearly the "entertainment writer, who is also an editor", and can even say that I’ve pulled in figures this past month a few hundred thousand pageviews higher.

It would have rocked to be named in there, but it’s still great to have the reference. I think the article does a good job making the blogging-for-a-living concept realistic. It can be a great career, but as yet it’s not something you can just "jump into" and expect a full-time salary. Although many jobs are now being posted for corporate bloggers, as yet this is still usually not a full-time gig, but rather a part of another job title.

That said, companies like b5 are giving people opportunities to make money from blogging much easier and faster than before. The "network effect" means that new blogs and bloggers grow much more quickly, and you reap the rewards from your effort much more quickly than you would on your own. Couple that with not having to fuss about technology, and the benefits of being a part of a community there to support you and help you excel, blogging becomes much more of a feasible job opportunity.

Tags: professional blogging, pro blogging, blogging, blog job, job trends, b5media

Duncan shot me out an interview on professional blogging a couple of days back for 901am.com.

It was an interesting experience to re-evaluate questions I have been asked before. I am much happier as a "pro blogger" now than I ever have been, but the answer as to why might surprise you.

Go check it out  :)

Tags: 901am, duncan riley, professional blogger, professional blogging, blogging, business, business title, job satisfaction, arieanna, arieanna schweber

A couple of months ago, we relaunched/rebranded a site we’ve had for quite some time as "the lingerie gals."

The Lingerie Gals is written by myself and a good friend, Gloria. We both love lingerie and writing it together has been a ton of fun. Especially when we get free samples ;)

Today was an exhaustive day in the lingerie world, with the release of the first pictures of the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show 2006. As amazing as always.

So, pop by and say hi and if you have a favorite piece of lingerie, or lingerie news, drop us a line and we’ll write about it.

Tags: lingerie, the lingerie gals, lingerie blog

ProBlogger has just launched a new Job Board (congrats Darren, it looks great!) and as part of that, I have listed some jobs in b5 that I’m hiring for.

• Performance Arts Blogger (www.fameorfamine.com)
• Medium Blogger (www.mediumdreams.com)
• The 4400 Co-blogger (TBD)

Check out the job board, check out my listings, and shoot me an email if interested.

To curtail the question before it gets asked - Does this mean b5 is hiring? Yes, sort of. You can tell I’m looking for a blogger for a new blog (to write with me, actually, on The 4400) and we will be looking for bloggers across other channels too. Not right now specifically - and, when we are, it will be with a fair amount more structure to how we go about it. When the time is right, b5′ll announce it on the blog.

If you have ideas you are just bursting to tell me about for my channels only, you can leave me a comment or drop me a line.

Tags: problogger, job board, blogging, blog, blogger, b5

This summer I have been really focusing on the growth of my celebrity/entertainment blogs on b5media. Seeing what I could do to build up the community of readers and provide them with more value.

I’ve done some backend tweaking of templates and plugins and whatnot, and on the writing side, I’ve focused on providing faster turnaround on news, more pictures, more polls, a contest or two, and more focused writing.

The type of focus I’ve gone towards has been in how I spin the content. Leaving more up to the readers, asking questions, provoking them to comment. And I’ve watched how people comment and turned that around into better and more focused writing.

As a rule, I’m fairly stand offish on these blogs. I don’t go in much to comment. Most of the comments are fairly "teen" based, going ga ga for the latest celeb sighting. And that’s totally fine by me. However, this summer I did make a point of watching the comments, and sometimes going in to direct them to other posts or things of that nature.

As time went on, the comments did grow in number. I cannot take all the credit for it - I am fully aware that this is summer vacation and my main readers are on holidays, spending their timing browsing my sites and others. I just kind of built on that and gave them reasons to stay on my sites.

This month in particular I went crazy on post volume. And I have as a result seen a daily growth in visitors. Many thousands more. I am sure the latest search indexing was in my favor and I’m getting all that. I am on page 1 or 2 for all main celebs I cover, sometimes quite high, and that is a bonus.

I’ve actually been really happy with the progress of my Gilmore Girls blog in particular this summer. It’s in reruns so that usually means a downturn. However, I had two big things going for me that I totally milked. First, the creators left. Second, one of the main stars broke up with her boyfriend and former co-star. Couple that with the uncertainty of how long the show will last, and it’s been a blast. I actually enjoy the blog so I do interact in the comments and they are usually "higher quality" comments too. Today I had my first surprise. For no reason I can gather, I had pages more of comments over yesterday. The highest comment count I’ve ever had.

I want to take the things I have learned from this industry and apply them to other blogs in other ways. I think it’s been a great experiment!

Tags: blogs, comments, commenting, blog comments

Ok, I must be doing something wrong (or very right) here. I cannot recall in an entire year when the last time I had only one tab open (Bloglines is always open).

I am a mass-tab Firefox user. Usually have 20-40 open at one time. I read, open tabs, write, and repeat. Usually never quite finish getting through the tabs. There is always something I want to write about, but am not quite in the zone or mood to whip off. So I leave it and repeat the read, open tabs bit. Many times a day - I have a lot of blogs, remember.

But now, I am through them. And some of my Bloglines folders are very much under control. My blogs are almost entirely updated. And it’s 4pm. This is just really weird. And I have no idea how it happened.

I guess I’ll go open more tabs now ;)

Tags: firefox, tabs, weird, blogs, blogging, workflow

A long list of lies about blogging. Like "Bloggers still live above their parents’ garage." from Jeremy or "anyone can [blog]." from Tom

I personally like this one: "My spouse won’t mind me blogging." from Dustin in the comments.

They are all hilarious and true. I added "blogs are just online diaries"

What lies do you know about blogging?

Qumana has a new release out (3.0.0-b4) which Ianiv has been working a ton on. Of course, there was that month lapse when we took our honeymoon, but it’s a big step up from our last beta release.

For me, I am one happy blogger. Aside from nipping some bugs in the butt, we made some big changes that save me a ton of time and effort.

1. Advance posting (a HUGE feature that I have been dying for)
2. Font formatting
3. Strikethrough button
4. YouTube support (now works with ‘embed’)
5. Post status changes (in footer and buttons whether ‘Draft’ or ‘Last Published’)
6. WYSIWYG image positioning (see below)

Read more here…

You can download the latest here. As always, it’s for PC and Mac.

We have big plans for the rest of the summer for Qumana development. Of course, starting on those plans now needs to wait till after Ianiv gets a new computer and we get back from Gnomedex. Ah, the unexpected ;)

*big pat on the back* for my hubby and all  his hard work on Qumana.

Tags: qumana, blog editor, professional blogging

I was reading this post about the over-reliance on traffic by many bloggers - and how, in many cases, this traffic-is-the-only-goal mentality has meant community falls through the cracks.

When it comes to what blogging means to both readers and writers, the numbers ultimately matter very little. I don’t go up to someone and say "hey, I found you because your traffic is increasing this month" - I’d be more likely to say "hey, that was a great article" or something. The difference is apparent - it’s not just the focus, but also the dialogue.

When bloggers get focused on increasing their traffic, they will be meme trackers - following whatever is hot enough to bring in spikes in traffic and subsequent links. But their all-over-the-place-ness can leave the readers who arrive and decide to subscribe a little confused. "Traffic whores" don’t really care about the subscribers - about inviting comments or dialogue - but more about climbing in Google.

When you shift your attention to an abstract thing called PageRank and away from actual people, you lose something. Your point becomes only money and not community. And, to me, that misses the great opportunities in blogging.

Now, you might bash me for following these lines with blogs like this or this, but I have trouble straying too far away from the importance I place on community. I’ve added new content areas when readers ask, shared emails with readers, and started up an active set of polls to keep readers having fun. So, while I may blog anything hot on the gossip pages for the money of it, the community of it is just as enriching.

In other cases, traffic is completely unimportant to me. This blog, for example, is highly skewed towards subscribers rather than search traffic. And that’s great by me. The goal of Blogging Help is really not money - nor has it ever been.

So - do you place too much reliance on traffic for your goal setting? How do you think that could bias what you write about or how?

Tags: traffic whore

Ok, I don’t know how but I came across this site called "God or Not" and its experiment got me to thinking…

if blogs/bloggers can be temporarily swapped to help each blogger understand the others’ side…

then blogs/bloggers could swap blogs for other benefits too

Primarily, I was thinking of blog swapping as a means to reduce bloggers block?

Bored of your topic? Lacking inspiration? Need a change of pace? Want to expand your reading but don’t know how? I’m sure there are thousands of bloggers in the same boat - why not swap blogs. It sounds exciting to me. Good way to get back in the vibe of writing, to keep your blog alive, and to build community.

What do you think? Do you think this would be a good way to inspire you?

Tags: blog swapping, bloggers block

I guess the 6th time is a charm! My Technorati profile now contains the image I have selected:

I am quite satisfied.

Now, I would like to pass on something I considered when updating my profile. I chose to use our Blogaholics logo for the profile instead of a personal picture.

Why choose a logo over a picture in your Technorati profile?

• A logo is timeless. It does not depend on hairstyles or fashions or even being photogenic.
• A logo scales well. The details are easily recognizable.
• A logo is professional.
• A logo can contain text, like a URL or company name.
• A logo is memorable.
• A logo is not obscured by backgrounds. It’s clean.

Those are my reasons for using my Blogaholics logo - an image, with changing name, that appears across most of our blogs. And a unique name that we are known for. Have you thought about what’s in your Technorati profile?

Of course, the image chosen need not be a "logo" necessarily, but perhaps your blog name or a part of your graphic standards.

Tags: technorati, logo, profile, business, reputation

I’m facing a dilemma in my blogging. More particularly, in my reading.

As I take on more blogs (I think I have enough now), my reading list grows. Logical, yes? Well, while a niche list develops with 20-30 feeds (blogs/tracking), so does the time involved to read those feeds.

Multiply this by all the blogs I cover (16) and you get to the quandary I’m at now.

I am covering so many different niche topics, and some that post at such high frequencies, that stuff I enjoy reading is being shunted to the sidelines. As the volume of posts increases out of some of the celebrity blogs I follow (yes, I blame that section), it becomes more difficult to stay on top of my other niches, let alone my interests.

I want to prune back my feeds to a manageable level (which I do regularly). From experience, my best feed level is 350 feeds.

I’m about 45 feeds over, but have been for days trying to figure out what to prune, with no luck. I keep my feeds pruned regularly - dropping stagnant feeds, picking up new ones. The past 2 months, however, my growth has exceeded my pruning efforts.

At this juncture, I have a tradeoff. Either I prune back niche feeds, and risk missing news, or I stop following my interests (personal and professional). I’m not happy doing either. One will slow my growth and the other will make me quite dissatisfied.

So this is my pro blogger dilemma: the balance of focus and personal satisfaction.

Right now, I don’t have a solution. I plan to keep the feeds as they are for now, but will manually refresh some folders on a consistent basis - too many ‘new’ items in bold stresses me out. I won’t necessarily have time to scan the posts, but the feed is there for my perusal at any time.

What is your solution? Have you reached a point where you don’t know how to scale back?

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Today, our first blog, Blogaholics, turns one. In the year span of time we have grown to 16 blogs - our own, network blogs, and paid blogs.

It’s been a year of growth, and will be a year of additional ‘Blogiversaries’, soon even for this blog.

We started more blogs very quickly after our first, which I think goes against the usual growth pattern. We made the decision to invest in long term growth and potential early on - and have continued to do so.

Usually when we start a blog, we start many at once. And this early and mass growth has defined our investment in the blogosphere, one we are clearly starting to reap benefits from on all fronts - not just monetary, but also career wise and in our personal relationships.

So, many surveys find that bloggers don’t stick with just one blog, especially if they focus on topic-specific blogs. So, has this held true for you?

How long have you had your blog, and how quickly have you grown from one to more?

Tags: blog growth, blogiversary, multiblog, professional blogging

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Thanks to Tris, I know that an interview I took part in some time ago is now published. The interview centered around blogging, of course, but was in particular angled towards high school students and job options.

Obviously I think there is room for pro bloggers as a career. It’s kinda what I do for a living. But, more than that, I think there is ample opportunity for high school students now and in the future to use blogging to leverage career options. Imagine making blogging your part time job, instead of working in fast food? Which one, do you think, would help you in future writing-based careers? Which one teaches writing, research, and communication skills? Now, I’m all for fast food careers - I worked at McDonald’s when I was a teen - but blogging would have been far more useful to me when I hit University!

Here is the start of the article:

If you’re something of a cyber-junkie, you’ve discovered blogging. Maybe you’ve even given it a shot yourself — after all, anyone can do it. But did it occur to you that a few bloggers earn healthy incomes from their online journals?

Blogging is big. “It’s growing by leaps and bounds,” says Paul Chaney. Chaney is president of an Internet marketing and business blog consulting agency based in Tupelo, Mississippi.

“Many companies are asking existing employees to set up their own blog and use it as vehicle to talk about the company. Microsoft, for example, has over 1,800 employee bloggers, though none of those are paid to blog,” says Chaney.

Great news for hobby bloggers. But if you’re going to make a career out of blogging, you’ve got to earn money — enough to live on — doing it. There are a few ways to do this.

Read on for more of the interviews of myself, Tris and others…